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New Twitter Account Repurposes Taylor Swift Lyrics As Feminist Slogans
Taylor Swift (Photo by Vince Bucci/Getty Images)
By Anam Syed
Taylor Swift is no stranger to drawing feminist ire. From firebrand icons like Camille Paglia to average Janes in the blogosphere, it seems like everyone has weighed in on Taylor’s icky attitudes towards gender.
The country pop singer and tabloid fixture has been accused of everything from slut-shaming to promoting regressive sexual politics.
Now @FeministTaylorSwift re-imagines Swift as an actual feminist. The new novelty twitter account flips her usual female-bashing lyrics into slogans of empowerment, with lines tweaking her hit song "We are never ever ever/ getting back together" into “We are never ever ever/ going to dictate how to present your gender."
The Twitter account was started two days ago by a Brown University student Clara Beyer with the inaugural tweet “She wears short skirts/ I wear t-shirts/neither of us is asking for it.”
Other tweets take on everything from consent, (“It’s a love story/Baby just say yes/ because consent should always be freely and enthusiastically given”) and pay inequity, (“I don’t know about you/but I’m feeling 22/cents underpaid on the dollar”) to activist culture (“Flash forward and we’re taking on the patriarchy together/ And there’s a drawer of my feminist zines at your place”).
It's been true all along, so why can't you see-ee-ee / Gender isn't necessarily a binary-y-y / Not a binary
— FeministTaylorSwift (@feministtswift) June 14, 2013
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Now if only the real Swift could tear herself away from ragging on Tina Fey and Amy Poehler to rework some (gasp!) feminist messages into her lyrics.
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